Lucky Number Eleven

Chapter Fourteen

Layla

Lifting a spoon of vanilla icing to my mouth, I watch Poppy enter the kitchen. Her phone is to her ear, a plastic grocery bag in one of her hands. She looks at me with brows tugged together, her lips forming a sympathetic curve.

"I'm at Layla's," she says into the phone. "Oh, no. We're just doing girl stuff."

She sits the bag on the counter and drops her keys next to it. "Layla, Finn and Branch say hello."

"Fuck him," I groan.

"That's what got you in this mess," she growls, narrowing her eyes. "Oh, no, Finn. I was talking to your sister. Her, um, her kitchen is a mess. Something she was testing out just turned into a shit storm really quick. That's why I'm here. To help figure out how to clean it up."

"Nice double entendre, asshole," I tell her, not bothering to lower my voice.

"Yes, Finn. I will. I'll call you when I'm done here. Bye." She swipes the phone off and lets it go sailing across the counter. "You ready for the big reveal?"

"This is not a game."

"We should make it fun," she shrugs. "Want to take bets?"

"No, I don't want to take bets, you lunatic."

She takes a step back and looks me up and down. "This baby is going to be gorgeous. I mean just beautiful."

"There is no baby!" I shout, even stomping my feet a little for effect. The slight hold I have on my sanity is fraying at an alarming rate and I am almost unable to find any strands left to hold on to. "I'm not having a baby."

"Let's take a test and be sure. And then, when you're not, we'll drink the champagne I just paid way too much for at the corner store and celebrate."

"Deal."

She rustles through the bag and pulls out a test that promises to be simple and to provide accurate results sooner than any other brand. She hands it over.

"I can't believe I'm doing this." I march down the hall and into my bathroom and close the door. "I was on the pill," I yell through the wall, ripping open the package. Laying the back of the box on the counter so I know which marking means what, I yank down my pants and sit down.

"Antibiotics!" she shouts back.

"And he wore a condom!"

"Maybe it had a rip?"

"Can I sue them for that?"

"No," she giggles.

Taking one deep, heavy breath that feels like my last as a free, sane woman, I jab the stick between my legs and do my business. With each tinkle, I squeeze my eyes harder, like each second of urine stream is another step closer to a life I don't want. That I can't imagine. That I hope beyond all hope isn't really happening to me.

Branch's handsome face flickers through my mind, and for some unknown reason, I want to kiss him as hard as I want to deck him right in his nine-inch cock.

I clean up, lay the stick on a hand towel, and open the door. Poppy is leaning against the wall.

"Come watch with me. It'll be like the solar eclipse," I tell her. "This will happen once in a lifetime. After this experience, I never want to have a baby."

"I think the eclipse happens more than once," she points out. "And it looks like this won't have to happen again because . . . you're pregnant, Layla."

The end of that is a whisper, but that's not why I don't hear it. I don't hear the words because I can see it on her face—the way her eyes grow, the corners of her lips softening, the ever-so-slight drop in her shoulders.

"Pop . . ." I fall against the wall, my knees threatening to betray my weight. They shake like I'm ready to come, wobble like I've just run five miles which I've never done, but this is what I think would happen if I did.

I can barely stand. I can't think. I can barely even see straight as Poppy lays a hand on my shoulder. Her lips move but I don't hear her. I'm lost in the last words she said to me.

Focusing on her face is harder than it should be and I pick the little freckle just under her left eye and try to see its shape and color. It's a blur. Everything is a blur.

A hand goes to my stomach. I try to imagine what's happening beneath my skin.

I'm pregnant.

I jerk my hand away. Looking at Poppy's face, I feel the tears before I even realize they're falling.

"I can't be pregnant," I whisper, not even sounding like my voice.

"I'm only asking this because I'm your friend, okay? It's Branch's baby, isn't it?"

"Yes."

"There are absolutely no other options. You didn't sleep with Callum and not tell me or drink some wine and just fool around with your neighbor?"

"No. I haven't slept with Callum in, what, four months? Branch is the absolute only person."

She nods, obviously coming to terms with the situation too. "How do you want to proceed? I'll do whatever you say."

"Rewind to that weekend and don't let me go to Linton."

She grins. "I can't do that."

"You said you'd do anything," I sniffle. "What am I going to do?"

My back drags down the wall until I'm sitting on the cool bathroom floor. Poppy plops down beside me sitting crisscross-applesauce and waiting for me to guide the conversation.

"I don't even know him," I lament. "How can I be having a baby by a man I barely even know?"

The tears fall harder, the salty streaks reaching my lips and dripping onto the floor.

"It's going to be all right, Layla."

"I know it's going to be all right. I don't have a choice but for it to be anything but all right," I say, taking the piece of toilet tissue she hands me. "But . . ."

"We'll figure it out."

"I'm the girl I never wanted to be," I say. "Single. Pregnant. Unprepared. So fucking unprepared."

My head falls into my hands, my stomach churning. Just a few days ago—hell, a few hours ago—my biggest problem was Callum texting me. That seems so much more manageable now.

"You aren't any kind of girl unless you're talking about a fun, sexy, best person kind of girl," she says, scooting closer and pulling me into a hug. The contact does it. The river breaks and I sob on her shoulder.

After a long while, when I'm cried out for the time being, she finally pulls away. I mop up my face with the tissue.

"You don't have to make any decisions now," she soothes.

"That's good because I don't have any idea where to start trying to unravel this fucking mess."

"Do you want to tell Finn?"

"Uh, no. Let's not tell Finn. I'd rather him not get involved and kill us all."

Staring at the wall, I feel completely detached from my body. It's almost as if I've been usurped in a coup and now I wait to see where I've been banished.

I drag in a breath, my body shaking as it settles. "This is going to be okay," I tell myself. "This is going to be okay."

"Yes, it is. Let's take it one day at a time and don't get overwhelmed." She twists her lips. "Can I still drink the champagne?"

As I fight not to laugh, she stands and pulls me to my feet.

"I know this is about you," she insists, "but can I be the Godmother? I've always wanted to be a Godmother."

"Oh my God, stop."

She pulls me down the hallway, babbling away about baby names and does what best friends do—lets me lean on her.